Latino Daily News

Spain Calls on EU for Greater Cooperation on Immigration

Spain is analyzing the measures needed to avoid tragedies like the deaths of 12 sub-Saharans last week when they tried to swim from Moroccan territory to the neighboring Spanish city of Ceuta, Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said Friday.

The government is also calling for improved coordination on the matter within the European Union and for cooperation with migrants’ homelands and the countries they pass through.

Soraya Saenz de Santamaria referred to the appearance Thursday in Parliament of Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz to brief lawmakers on the Feb. 6 incident in Ceuta.

In what the deputy premier described as an “example of transparency,” the minister acknowledged that members of the Spanish Civil Guard fired rubber bullets when some 400 immigrants tried to enter Spanish territory, though he said the defense measure was proportional to the threat.

In the heart of the EU there is an attempt to improve coordination of border control and cooperation procedures with immigrants’ countries of origin and transit, since they “seem doomed to further tragedies like those that have occurred on a number of occasions,” Saenz de Santamaria said.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, asked Spain to explain the shooting of rubber bullets last week in Ceuta.